Why are the prisoners so angry with the newly arrived Jews?
The Jewish prisoners are angry with the newly arrived Jews for various reasons. The most important reason as to why the prisoners are angry with the newly arrived Jews is due to fact that the war is not ending. If new Jewish people are arriving, that means the outside world does not know about the terrible things the Jewish prisoners are experiencing.
When new Jewish arrivals come into the concentration camps, it causes the prisoners to lose all hope. Hope is all that they have. They hope the war will end. They hope that other countries will come to their aid. When newly arrived Jews enter the camps, the previous prisoners become angry because other countries are not trying to stop Hitler and his German Nazis.
In Night , chapter three, the prisoners express their angry sentiments...
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with the new arrivals. In particular, in chapter three, a prisoner lashes out at the new arrivals:
"Shut up, you moron, or I’ll tear you to pieces! You should have hanged yourselves rather than come here. Didn’t you know what was in store for you here in Auschwitz? You didn’t know? In 1944?"
Truly, this prisoner yells at the new arrivals and calls them morons for not knowing how terrible the conditions are in the concentration camps. He thinks they should have chosen death by suicide rather than coming to the camps.
Wiesel confirms that the new arrivals did not know what was up ahead in the camps:
True. We didn’t know. Nobody had told us. [The prisoner] couldn’t believe his ears. His tone became even harsher:
Over there. Do you see the chimney over there? Do you see it? And the flames, do you see them?" (Yes, we saw the flames.) Over there, that’s where they will take you. Over there will be your grave. You still don’t understand? You sons of bitches. Don’t you understand anything? You will be burned! Burned into a cinder! Turned to ashes! (3.25-27)
This particular prisoner was shocked that new arrivals had no idea about the crematories. The new arrivals were just as shocked when they learned what was to happen to them.
It was 1944 and the war should be over. Some prisoners had been experiencing the horror of the concentration camps for too long. No doubt, the prisoners were angry. The camps were filled with starvation and crematories. Death existed everywhere for the Jews.
Clearly, the prisoners are angry because more innocent people will die. Many of the prisoners have lost their strength and sense of hope. The prisoners cannot help but express their angry sentiments over what is taking place. The camps are so filled with death until the existing prisoners react harshly to the new arrivals. The existing prisoners cannot believe that the new arrivals have no idea how horrible the conditions are in the concentration camps.
The struggle for survival and how it creates a lack of solidarity amongst individuals who had to endure the Holocaust is a critical element in Wiesel's work. One of the most powerful aspects of the narrative that unfolds is that the reader is able to see the absolutely horrific condition inside the camps and what it is like to have to struggle to live, to merely exist. Wiesel exposes this in many ways. He depicts it in the fighting for a scrap of bread, where people beat one another for an extra piece. He demonstrates this in the man who is shot for wanting another bowl of soup. He shows this in how individuals lose sight of solidarity for one another in their overwhelmingly difficult to survive, in a situation where sons forget their mothers and daughters, and children abandon their fathers. We, as readers, find it awful and possess a natural tendency to criticize the behavior we are witnessing. Yet, here is where Wiesel possesses a sense of moral and ethical genius. In speaking out against such behavior, Wiesel demands that we do this in all of our actions, criticizing the behavior that seeks to demean and dehumanize another. He also does a masterful job of creating a portrait where criticism is virtually impossible because such actions that reflect anti- solidarity are done for one purpose: Survival. What Eliezer sees and experiences helps to forge his identity within such a setting where coming of age involves grasping the most dark elements of human consciousness.
This might be why there is anger for newly incarcerated individuals of Jewish persuasion. Existing people do not see these new entries as fellow victims, but rather as competitors for the mere subsistence of life that exists. When the newly arrived people enter, greater competition for living is present. It would be ideal to observe that this forges greater human community and bonds between one another. Yet, this is where Wiesel demonstrates that the real inhumanity of the Nazis resided in how their demeaning behavior that robbed people of dignity and collective identity was duplicated in the relationships that victims had towards one another.